light-bulb soliloquy

If i look into the bulb, direct,
down the corridor of its glow, 20 seconds
& then avert my eyes, my vision switches odd
: a fractal lava lamp—lumps of colour
speckle & morph my usual world, the ghost of paint
—a crayon sketch of the mapped genome,
a daedal holograph of the entire universe,
nebulae gravid with high-res gas & heat,
cells jostling in pigmented fluids,
germs jostling in a microscope—all in my field
until vision flicks normal again after 30 seconds.
Light flashes its innards at us, to know it.
A sperm does not have the will of a child
nor does a man dance like a cell, & yet…

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After living in Korea for shy a decade, I find myself back in England, penalized for my turned back, awaiting a move to Exeter, where I will study an MA in English, with focus on environmental studies. These days I am reading inveterately, owing to my no longer living without the means to buy books & books & books. My reading interest lie in contemporary philosophy, ecology, ecological philosophy, object orientated ontology & speculative realism. These ideas are leaching into my poetry & essays.

Cheers Daniel. i’m really into the sonnet at the moment. It is somewhat new to me actually & it feels so right for these soliloquies pieces.
i fear unless you come, i’d have no students & a lot of debt. Best make a move pal.

A fascinating topic, afterimages, the retina, defects in the aqueous humor etc, or how we perceive them. Love the way you’ve implied their importance in distance scales and introduced that uncertainty about sentience ..,

Having bad vision anyway, this ‘afterimage’ phenomena has a particularly intense effect on my vision, i get it in intense sunlight & in perfect darkness, oddly. The over arching idea is the coincidence of that effect & the hidden details of reality, not to suppose, but just to outline that verisimilitude.

“ There, I am desperately free and naive; but knowing this oh dear happiness, dear misery; there is no distinctive sign except that one tearing one’s heart, and a smile destined to nobody(...)" E.Stachura